


Le Water

by Zesty_Bill_Clinton



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Comparing dick sizes, Gay Nick Carraway, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV First Person, Smoking, Unrequited Love, sharing a cigarette, this is a joke fic I took too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zesty_Bill_Clinton/pseuds/Zesty_Bill_Clinton
Summary: Gatsby is worried his ‘equipment’ is inadequate and asks Nick for his opinion.This is entirely based on the story of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway comparing dicks in a parisian bathroom
Relationships: Nick Carraway/Jay Gatsby
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	Le Water

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started as a joke but welp, here we are.
> 
> YES this fic is based on Fitzgerald showing Hemingway his dick bc his Zelda Fitzgerald insulted it. If you haven’t heard of this story I highly recommend looking it up because it’s funny, but knowing it is not required to read this fic.
> 
> Also sorry if either character is OOC I read Great Gatsby once in junior year english class, but also everything is canon now.

It was a quarter past too late, with the night dripping into morning somewhere outside the musty air of the speakeasy. Gatsby had dragged me there and through the night, getting drunk off potentially poisonous alcohol and trying to convince me not to take my scotch on the rocks. I only let the bartender pour me liquors bottled before the decade started, to guarantee some modicum of quality, and it wasn’t hard when Gatsby was offering his tab to everyone who’d said a kind word about his party last week.   
It was a Thursday, which should have warned me that maybe Gatsby wasn’t in the best sorts. He was distraught, distracted. He kept talking to me about Daisy, pulling himself away from the characters which crept out from the hazier corners of the bar to say something to me and me alone.  
When Gatsby invited me out, on a workday no less, I was taken by surprise. But I also knew that if I called in sick tomorrow, no one would notice my absence nor note the lack of productivity from my corner as less than that of any other weekday.  
But now it was late, too late for my taste, and I kept trying to encourage Gatsby to take his leave, hoping he’d call us a car or let me drive instead of attempt it in his state. Either way, I wanted sleep off the headache that was already starting to form behind my temples and I couldn’t do that without getting him home.  
Awaiting our escape, I stood up from our corner table and moved to go to the bathroom, but before I could slip away Gatsby was standing up too.  
“Are you ready to go?” I asked, watching him shake the hand of yet another stout cigar smoking patron.  
“hmm, no, we’re going to the bathroom”  
I rolled my eyes but proceeded anyway. it’s wasn’t like I was going to get anywhere with Gatsby. When he set his mind to something it was decided. Just like that.  
I went up to the urinal ready to take care of my business when Gatsby saddled up next to me, pants already unzipped.  
I meant to move, but ended up being paralyzed by the proximity. Gatsby kept talking, about the inane things Gatsby talked about when he was drunk, and I tried to tune it out- staring at the peeling paneling that made up the wall.  
“Is it big enough?” Gatsby said suddenly, a comment which my poor ears couldn’t seem to ignore, as Gatsby’s eyes bored into the side of my head waiting for a response.  
I turned to look at the man, who had finished his business yet unlike any normal man, still held his cock out in the palm of his hand- like a presentation.  
“Do you think it’s big enough? Apparently that matters to women, from what I’ve heard”  
I shuddered at my own imagination, wondering how that might have come up in conversation, and instead just decided to give Gatsby an answer.  
“It’s fine, Gatsby”   
“Are you sure, old sport?” he said, with genuine concern in his voice. “I mean, it seemed to be satisfactory to Daisy when we were young, but Tom-“  
“Gatsby- you’re fine” I said, exasperated and also trying to ignore the thoughts that were percolating in the back of my mind, thoughts that definitely should not be addressed in the bathroom of a bar with Gatsby and his pants down.  
But in all honesty, Gatsby had nothing to worry about. I had seen my fair share of men’s cocks in the barracks showers during the war (and in the dorms at Yale, because reading the Iliad had made for an interesting spring semester with the classics majors). Gatsby wasn’t exceedingly well endowed, to the point of it being anything to write home about, but it wasn’t something that anyone should be unhappy with.  
“I just don’t know” Gatsby started, hands gesticulating around his crotch in a way that made me wish I was perhaps rotting in the ground instead of here.   
“But maybe she’s realized I’m inadequate, that’s why she doesn’t, you know”  
“I’m sure there are a whole host of reasons besides your-“  
“my cock”  
“your cock, yes. but there’s plenty of reasons Daisy hasn’t-“  
hasn’t put out? hasn’t left her husband for her neighbor? hasn’t abandoned her child and the expectations of her family for a bootlegger?  
“your right, your right” Gatsby said, nodding.  
I don’t don’t know why I say it, because it’s a ridiculous comparison, but my mind is still temporarily slipping back to the slender classics major who liked to share more than his cigarettes almost a decade ago.  
“Just go to the museum” I say “and look at the statues” it’s such ridiculous advice, but Gatsby is drinking it in like gospel. “then look at yourself in the mirror. You’ll see you have nothing to worry about”  
“You’re a genius, old sport” Gatsby says, clapping a hand against my shoulder. The weight of his action knocks me nearly forward, edging me closer to him in a way that makes my mind trudge even closer to war with itself.  
“Well now that that’s sorted” I say, chuckling awkward and taking a half step back from the other man. “I’d like to take a piss”  
“Of course, of course” Gatsby says, tucking himself into his trousers and moving away to wash his hands.  
I meet Gatsby over at the sink, where he’s already lit a cigarette.   
“Yours isn’t half bad” Gatsby says suddenly, and I splutter in a way that definitely would have wasted half a drink if I had one.  
“do you mean my-“ I ask, even though I probably should have just ignored the comment. I try not to think about the fact that this means Gatsby had been staring, observing.  
“Yeah, definitely adequate” Gatsby says, like it’s a compliment.   
“Well I’d sure hope so” I say, rolling my eyes. Wouldn’t he like to know  
“I’m sure that any woman would be glad to have you” Gatsby says, with his signature heavy hand on my shoulder. It takes me a moment to register what he’s implying.  
“Do you think I’m a virgin?” I asked, incredulous that this is the discussion we’re having. That I’m a few months off of thirty and Gatsby thinks I haven’t ever slept with anyone.  
“No, I mean yes, I mean-” Gatsby stutters around his words, looking me over with new eyes.  
“You just never seemed very interested-”  
That brings a laugh out of me, and Gatsby is looking at me with shocked eyes. There’s a flicker there, of fear, like he’s offended me. I pluck the cigarette from between his fingers and take a drag before I speak again. Gatsby, for the first time since I’ve met him looks speechless. It’s an interesting look on him.  
“I’ve been interested in women plenty of times Gatsby” I say, and for a moment a silent but hangs in the air, although my lips don’t move to articulate it. I take another drag off Gatsby’s cigarette- better to leave him to wonder. Let him question if that but means “I’ve had men and women” if that but means “I’ve had plenty and yet I’ve preferred the men”. If that but could tell him the too dangerous truth that reckless men have always been my vice. 

I think about Gatsby, staring off into the mirror of the bathroom, like I’ve bored him now that I’ve gotten his cigarette. Yet his eyes hold something, like windows to the gears shifting inside his head, pondering, wondering, and everything in my body tells me that I want to know him.  
Gatsby moves suddenly, snatching the cigarette back from me. His knuckles graze mine as he grabs it, and he stares at the spit wet end of the cigarette before he places it against his lips. In a moment he exhales, and the billowing cloud of tobacco fills the space between us, making me realize exactly how close we’re standing.  
Gatsby opens his mouth, as if to say whatever he had been mulling over mere moments ago, yet instead his eyes flick away from mine.  
“Let’s head home, old sport”


End file.
